


No Ballad Will Be Written

by callmejude



Series: Ice and Brine [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Choking, Daddy Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s08e02 A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, M/M, Minor Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark, Past Ramsay Bolton/Theon Greyjoy, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 19:41:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18629980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmejude/pseuds/callmejude
Summary: Theon returns to the North.





	No Ballad Will Be Written

Jon does not receive him, in Winterfell. When he asks Sansa after him, she sighs and mentions he’s kept mainly to his chambers the past few days. She makes mention as well — with a surprising amount of disdain — that he and Queen Daenerys have taken to one another, found a sense of solace in each other, and found themselves in each other’s beds. 

“You know how my brother is,” Sansa laments. “Everything he does, he does with his whole heart, no matter how foolish.”

Theon smiles, ignoring the pang in his chest as she speaks. 

He is happy, truly, for Jon to have found someone. A woman, to make things simple. Someone who can give him everything it is that he may want, should they survive this. Children, one day. A family name. The very throne of the Seven Kingdoms. A happy life. Theon had never expected that Jon would be his only forever. 

Theon knows he doesn’t count — he never really had.

Later, after dusk, gathered in the library with the rest of the war council, he finally sees Jon. He is as Theon recalls him from Dragonstone: dour and serious, focused on other things, but when Theon speaks up, offers himself and the few ironborn who joined him to guard Bran in the godswood, he feels Jon’s wide grey eyes on him, and just briefly meets his gaze.

Jon is looking at him as if he’s only just now noticed he’s here, gaping at him for a moment before Theon squirms under the scrutiny and turns back to Bran to make his promise. Theon had made the mistake once. He will not ever make it again. He will gladly die correcting it.

As the council disperses, Queen Daenerys lingers, and for a moment, Theon realizes as he exits with the rest of his ironborn, it looks as if Jon will as well. As Theon passes by Sansa, he gives her a wry nod, indicating the two stragglers. 

Sansa does not smile back, her eyes sharp and critical as he spots them. She does not pretend to find the humor in it that Theon does. She opens her mouth to say something, perhaps about how foolish and lovestruck her brother is being again, when Jon ducks away suddenly, races between them, his head down, causing the two of them to freeze.

Theon watches him leave before looking back at Sansa. 

“What did she say to him?” Sansa asks, mostly under her breath.

“Would you like me to ask him, Lady Sansa?”

Sansa’s expression finally softens. “You needn’t call me that, Theon.”

Theon sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek, remembering Robb’s same request, years ago. 

Perhaps Sansa notices the change in him, because she does not press the issue, and instead regards his question. “If you think he would speak to you about it, I would appreciate the effort. He’s not spoken to me on anything involving the queen, even less these past few days.” 

That isn’t shocking, to Theon. Jon would never be frank with such matters to Sansa, regardless of how she’s grown. To Jon, it will never be proper to discuss such things with his little sister. And, with no small amount of embarrassment, it occurs to Theon that he does not want to hear of such things either, an odd sort of jealousy niggling at the back of his mind. 

Still, he nods in acceptance. For Sansa, he will do anything.

He feels foolish, standing at Jon’s door come nightfall. It is unguarded; there are no men to spare. It reminds him of a lifetime ago, when he was someone else. Before everything, when he had could pretend nothing meant anything to him, and showing up at Jon’s bedchamber was only out of boredom; nothing more.

That memory has fogged and warped, now. Theon can no longer remember if it had ever truly been that way.

He’s not sure what it is he expects when he knocks gently on Jon’s door. Dragonstone had started with such hostility, but by the end, they had found a closeness, however tenuous. 

Steeling himself, Theon knocks again, louder.

When Jon answers the door, he looks haggard. More exhausted than he ever did on Dragonstone. As Theon takes in the sight of him, it looks almost as if he’d been crying.

“Jon —”

His voices dies; he’s not thought of more to say. But it matters not. Jon’s gasp drowns out his quiet voice, and he throws his arms around Theon’s neck.

They stand there in the darkened hall, and the silence is crushing, Jon’s arms wrapped so tight around Theon’s back it’s a struggle to breathe. Cautiously, after a moment, Theon returns the embrace. He had not expected this, in their reunion, not after how Jon had reacted while standing at the war council, and especially not after all the things Sansa had told him.

“Jon, is — is something the matter?”

What a stupid question. Theon bites down on his tongue.

“Nothing,” is Jon’s equally stupid answer, “no, no — nothing. Just… gods, it’s good to see you. I did not have word that you were coming.”

Curious, Theon tilts his head, trying to gauge Jon’s expression. “I arrived this afternoon,” he says gently. “Sansa was the one to receive me. And — and Queen Daenerys.”

The hands at Theon’s shoulders clench tight at her name, and Theon blinks. Recovering slowly, he smirks at Jon’s mortification. It feels odd on his face, now. He can’t remember the last time he smiled with such coy teasing. 

“The rumours have reached even me, you know. Sansa says you’re quite enamoured with our new —”

Jon silences him with a kiss, swallowing Theon’s little stunned shout, hands cupping Theon’s face. Heart swooping in his chest, Theon pushes him back, shocked, peering through the dim light of the room to search Jon’s face.

“Become a harlot, have you?” Theon says, trying to make Jon smile. “Taken up the rules of the ironborn? I’d not make much of a saltwife, I promise you, and I don’t believe our queen would approve of such —”

“Shut up,” Jon hisses, tugging him inside and slamming the door behind them. The iron latch rattles shut. It’s forceful, loud, and Theon jolts. It was wrong of him to try and be who he would have been before. Jon is in no good humor for it. “I don’t want to talk about her, Theon or any — any of it. I missed you. Please.”

His face is pale, eyes dark, stricken. Even with his dark beard, and his hair worn like his father, Jon looks so young.

Theon wants to ask what has happened, what could cause such a look on Jon’s face, what could cause such a good and honorable man to take a second, secret lover. Against the _queen_. A woman fierce and powerful and beautiful. Everything Theon is not. Sick, bitter, a voice in Theon’s head reminds him of the circumstances of Jon’s birth — perhaps there is no man so good and honorable so as not seek flesh when he needs it.

And Jon needs it. Is about to fly out of his skin, for it. He pleads without speaking, like he used to when they were boys, fingers quivering on his wrist, and Theon, weak thing that he is, is helpless to give it to him. 

Resolute, Theon nods. “Alright, I — here…”

Gently, he tugs out of Jon’s grip so that he can remove his gloves. He keeps his eyes pinned to his hands, shamed to see the look on Jon’s face even now, when he sees his missing fingers. Most people forget, as long as his gloves are on.

But instead, Jon only reaches for him, gripping his clothes, pulling him close. Startled, Theon gasps, but Jon works quickly, Unfastening Theon’s cloak and letting it pool on the floor in a heap. Fingers trembling, Jon undoes Theon’s leather greaves, tugs off Theon’s doublet and helps him to shrug off his woolen tunic underneath. As the last garment comes away, Theon’s scars are revealed all at once. Some dark and puckered, other pale and risen, the texture of his flesh is storied and manifold. Scalds and stabs and long meandering slashes. Amputated sections, discoloured patches. Winter is well and truly here, now, and Theon’s body does less well in the cold, these days. His mangled joints and stiff limbs, they ache and pulse in the frigid air. Though Winterfell is warmer than what Theon has grown used to at sea, but his maimed hands still tremble as he tugs the laces of his breeches loose, and Jon helps him step out of them quickly, as if someone could walk in on them any moment. 

He stands naked before Jon, and though the sight of his own body always saddens him, he is not ashamed. There are only two people alive who have seen him like this, the only two he could ever bear. There was a third, once, but he is dead now. His ashes scattered across Northern snows.

When Theon reaches for Jon, Jon only pulls back.

“No, I — no.”

Theon holds up his hands, surrendering. “It’s — it’s alright.”

He wants desperately to see Jon’s body. To watch the smooth muscles work under his skin, the deep scars in his chest pull as he moves. Theon is entranced by the strength of him, marvels at how different Jon’s become. But he will not force it.

“What — what is it you need, Jon?”

Jon shakes his head. Under his breath, he whispers, “Don’t.”

Theon casts his eyes down. Perhaps it’s upsetting for him to ask such a thing of Jon. After what happened between them on Dragonstone, after what had come to light, Jon might be reluctant ask for anything from him. But Theon remembers the ship, as they sailed to King’s Landing, taking Jon into a cabin and swallowing around his cock until he came. Jon doesn’t like to ask for things, but he will take what he is given.

“I want — I want to help you,” Theon assures gently, “however I can. Please.”

He keeps his eyes pointed down, more for the sake of Jon’s shame than his own, and listens as Jon disrobes himself. He tosses his cloak onto the pile of furs on his bed and moves quickly to pull off the rest of his leathers. 

Theon does not look up, does not reach for him, but Jon does not wait for him to do either. As soon as he has shed the last of his clothes, he seizes Theon by the arm and throws him onto the bed. 

With a soft gasp, Theon lands on his back against the furs. Dazed, he sits up on his elbows, but Jon only shoves him back down as he climbs overtop him.

“You want to help me?” he hisses, like a threat.

Theon nods, silent.

Seizing a handful of Theon’s hair in his fist, Jon drags him into a kiss. It’s hungry and desperate, and Theon melts against the furs, heart pounding in his throat. 

He had not let himself wish for this as he came to Jon’s door. Not even dared. He had told himself he was happy regardless, just to see Jon again. But his heart swells at the way Jon grips him.

On Dragonstone, Jon had not been much a different lover than he had when they were boys. Gentle, caring. So infuriatingly kind. It is not how he is, now. He grips and shoves, bears down with all his might on Theon’s hatchmarked chest, brings a knee to the scar between Theon’s legs. He kisses Theon as if it were a punishment, a test, trying to steal the breath from him, holding his body down as if afraid he may run away. 

When, at last, Jon breaks away from him, it’s only to fumble blindly for the lamp oil resting on his windowsill. He slicks himself roughly, silently, and leaves Theon only to watch.

Theon does not mind the change. Jon is still far more tender than Theon deserves, even as he pins Theon’s hands above his head and thrusts his slick cock inside him before making any effort to prepare him for it.

Theon does not need it. It has been a while, but his body remembers. Remembers what it is like to be to be trapped, to be ravished, to be taken. His back goes rigid all at once before falling slack against the furs, surrendering. Head spinning, Theon can only moan, keening against Jon’s body as he thrusts into him. Once inside him, Jon drops his head, breathing harsh against Theon’s ear, loud and sharp as he moves against him. His hands are so firm on Theon’s arms, holding him down, keeping him still.

It’s all so fast after that. Strong, Jon has gotten so strong. Pushing Theon down against the furs as his hips pump into him. It is a familiar feeling — solid and owned. Cherished in a way he never should have felt, but felt all the same. He had forgotten, that not every moment of it was begging for death. His vision unfocuses, and for a moment it’s not Jon. For a moment— 

“Theon…” Jon’s voice breaks the spell. 

He had never been Theon, then.

Vision clearing, Jon’s face fades back into view, beautiful and intense, eyes dark. It’s like a balm against the terror, to be so wanted. Desperate and animalistic, forgetting everything that either of them have been through all these years. He’d never been so wanted, when he was whole. No one had ever looked at him as Jon looks at him now, as if Theon is the last tether he can manage to cling to. Theon understands that, his own bitten nails digging hard into Jon’s shoulders. The stretch of Jon’s cock is solid, burning and raw. But the old fear scrapes along the edges of his pleasure, watching like a beast from the shadows. Whimpering, Theon pulls Jon close, wrapping his legs tight over Jon’s hips. Helpless to give him everything.

Of course the queen couldn’t give this to Jon. How could she know what it is to be nothing?

“ _Yes,_ ” is all Theon can manage to say.

For stability, Jon’s hand plants itself on Theon’s shoulder, over his collarbone. It’s a heavy weight, and without thinking why, Theon shifts his body underneath it, letting the palm of Jon’s hand slip over his throat. Groaning, Theon’s eyelids flutter shut.

Jon jolts, but doesn’t move his hand away. Perhaps he would, if Theon had given him the option, but the pressure at his neck feels real — grounding — and Theon reaches out to hold Jon arm in place, only for a moment. Assurance. This is what he wants.

Jon is safe. He’s so safe. And Theon can’t remember ever feeling the peace he feels now. Here, on what may be his last night. When he meets Jon’s eyes, the coldness and fury in them has slipped away. 

For just a moment, Theon can tell himself Jon wants him. Loves him, as he is.

It’s a foolish thing to think. A childish fancy. They have no luxury for love, any longer. But Jon’s full weight presses onto him, into him, solid and comforting. He feels so fragile, under Jon’s strong hands. Breakable. Weak. And he is unafraid. That’s the only sort of love Theon knows.

Shivering, Theon pants, “Gods, Jon —”

There’s a gasp above him, wet and sudden, and Theon’s eyes fly open to see Jon’s staring down at him wide and black. He’s trembling as his grip on Theon’s throat tightens, just briefly.

The tension at his throat makes his head swim, his lungs burn. It feels so good, and Theon lets himself be selfish enough to want more.

“Please — please, Jon —”

“Shut up,” Jon growls, his fingers clenching on Theon’s throat just a shade short of too far. “Shut up, don’t — don’t say it.”

Theon isn’t sure what he means, but nods. He can follow rules. He won’t say anything.

But suddenly there are tears streaming down Jon’s face, breathing harsh as he loses rhythm pushing into Theon’s body. His thrusts intensify, knocking the air from Theon’s lungs. 

Still, Jon pants breathlessly in the damp air between them.

“Don’t,” Jon says over and over, “gods, don’t — don’t…”

For one wild moment Theon is certain that Jon must have read his mind. Knows somehow, the fleeting thought of Ramsay fucking him amidst his furs at the Dreadfort. Had he said it aloud? Called him the wrong name, the wrong title. 

Shivering, Theon shakes his head, tries to reassure. With all the focus he can manage, he drawls out his name. The right name.

“Jon…”

Jon’s orgasm is sudden, violent, coming with a shout as Jon collapses over Theon’s body. It fills Theon abruptly, hot and dizzying, and Theon whines against the feeling. It’s a claim, his mind supplies, foggy with desire. He has no release of his own, simply the sated fog of being wanted — being needed. Jon could have never asked for this from anyone else, not even the queen. Jon had chosen Theon, for this. It’s almost better, than the relief of coming.

They pant together in the quiet, the room fills with only the noises of their breath.

Still warm and disoriented, it takes Theon a moment to realize Jon’s trembling breaths are sobs.

“I’m not,” Jon tells him helplessly, “I’m not. That’s not me.”

Heart going cold in Theon’s chest, he props himself onto his elbows. Jon won’t look at him, face buried in Theon’s chest.

“I’m not. I’m _not_. He — he _lied_.”

Mind reeling, Theon struggles to understand. “Wh —”

“My whole — life,” Jon heaves, curling against Theon as if trusting him with his life. “He lied to me. I’m not a bastard. I’m not — I’m not his _son._ ”

Scrambling onto his knees, Jon sits up, ripping away from Theon like he’d been hit in the face. He is breathing hard, back heaving with each exhale. His hair has come undone, and his long, dark curls fall strewn into his eyes. He looks nearly crazed, like some mad seer, driven to terror by visions only apparent to him. Breathing in harsh, shallow pants that get shorter and shorter, Jon sways. Eyelids fluttering, as though he may faint.

Theon knows that fear. Knows it well. Learnt it in the dungeons of the Dreadfort. Knows the feeling of fear causing you to drown on dry land. Of being trapped in your own body as if underwater. Of gasping for each breath in a mindless pull for air. Of the world turning black before your eyes.

Not stopping to think better of it, he takes Jon’s face in his hands, forcing his eye. “Jon, please. You’re scaring me. Just breathe, I have you. Breathe.”

Some part of it reaches Jon, and his eyes refocus. Under Theon’s hands, his skin burns to the touch.

“That’s it,” Theon soothes.

Breath steadying, Jon presses, “He _lied_ to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Distraught, Jon hides his face in his hands. “My father— my father— my father wasn’t Eddard Stark.”

It’s such a mad thing to say, Theon could nearly laugh, if not for the cold surge of dread that floods him. “What? How can that—”

“I’m not his son. I was never his son!” He turns away, out of Theon’s grip, still covering his face beneath his hands. “But it was my mother— _my mother_ — he would forbid me to ask of her, always. Never even told me her name! And it was her, all this time—”

“Your mother?”

Jon’s hands slid from his face, landing in his lap. Head hanging, he exhales, the dark scars on his chest rising and falling in a slow breath. When he speaks, his voice trembles with fury and tears, “My mother… my mother was Lyanna Stark.”

Of all possibilities Theon had ever considered, truely, that was not one he had prepared to hear.

Lyanna Stark, a daughter of Winterfell and a child of the North, the girl over whom all seven kingdoms had burnt and bled a lifetime ago. She was all but a phantom in the halls of the castle, looming unspoken of. Even when Theon was a child, and new to the North, he knew her name, knew how her ghost had haunted Lord Stark all the days of his life, more deeply, more pointedly than the loss of his father and brother. How the war had decimated his family. How his wild and willful sister had been carried off by the mad Targaryen prince. 

So stunning is the realization. Theon’s mouth falls open in abject shock. 

He seizes Jon hard by the shoulders. Shakes him, once, to force him to look. Holds his gaze.

There is such sorrow in Jon’s eyes, dark and sunken and bleary.

“Are you lying to me?” Theon asks, because he has to.

It is a waste of breath. Jon has never been a liar. Couldn’t be if he tried. He only shakes his head no.

“And so… your father—”

“My father was Rhaegar Targaryen,” Jon’s voice breaks over the name.

Blood roars in Theon’s ears, his own heart racing. He looks Jon up and down, eyes roving over this body that he has known so well for so many years as if it were the first time. But nothing changes. It is all the same.

Overcome, he gathers Jon up in his arms, squeezes him tight, as tight as his arms will allow. All at once, in a mad rush, he is taken by the memory of Jon as a young boy, just at the end of the last winter, the shunned bastard, already so wary of men and their scorn. But so equally desperate to be loved, to be wanted. That lonely boy Theon had lorded over, toyed with, taken into his bed because he knew he could; Theon wants nothing more than to be able to hold that boy now, to kiss his hair and promise him he is loved, to shield him from the cruelty of men, to tell him that it will all be worth it some day, that he would be king of them all.

Presently, Jon only shakes in his grip, weeping quietly against his shoulder.

And so, the Dragon Queen was his—

Sickened, Theon remembers once, a lifetime ago, mocking Jon to his face. _”Perhaps I’ve already fucked your mother, Snow. Is she the sad black-haired whore down on the King’s Road? You both pout so prettily with my cock in your mouths.”_ It was one of the few times they had ever actually come to blows, for all their bickering. Jon had slapped him, knocked him down, tried to strangle him before they’d been pulled apart.

Running a soothing hand over Jon’s back, Theon tries to convey nothing but apology.

“It wasn’t— it wasn’t like they all said,” manages Jon after a moment, “that she was… was defiled. That she was murdered.”

Of course not. When had it ever been simple for Jon?

“They were wed,” he says in a breath, the sobs mostly quieted. 

Theon closes his eyes, the words hitting him like a bolt. “How do you know this?”

“Bran. He saw it, in a vision.”

It makes Theon laugh, though there are tears in his eyes, feeling mad. “And he is certain? There can be no doubt?”

“Yes,” is all Jon says.

Holding Jon in his bed, the rest comes together for Theon. The tales of the rebellion, of Lord Eddard Stark’s brother and father marching south to demand back their stolen daughter from the Mad King, of Lyanna Stark dying, trapped in a tower in Dorne. And of Lord Stark marching home with an infant babe, refusing to ever name the child’s mother. Not even to his wife. Not even to the child himself.

“He did it to protect you,” Theon tells him gently, after a time. “King Robert would have killed you as an infant had he known.”

“How are you so calm to learn this?” Jon asks, pulling out of Theon’s embrace. He sounds angry, but there’s no direction to it. Theon’s heart breaks for him, and he drops his gaze. Jon is not so open with his feelings, any longer. Not since they were boys. It feels unfair to see, but Jon reaches out and tugs his shoulder, making Theon look at him again. “Everything — everything I thought I knew for fact…”

Theon shrugs. “Aye, it’s — it perhaps changes what you knew. But it does not change who you are.”

Scoffing, Jon shakes his head. “All my _life,_ I thought —”

“It changes your name,” Theon interrupts firmly. It stabs something cold through his heart to say. He does not want Jon to know that feeling. “A name is just a sound people call you. But you. It does not change you, Jon.”

“My name isn’t even Jon,” he answers miserably.

_”What are we without our history?”_

Suppressing a chill, Theon smiles, recalling instead what Jon had said to him, just before he left Dragonstone to rescue his sister from Euron. “It is, if that’s what you choose it to be.”

Jon’s eyes are dark as they meet Theon’s. He could guess at what Jon is thinking, if he’s remembering his words to Theon, as well. At any rate, he has nothing to say, instead taking Theon’s jaw in his hand, holding him firmly in place.

He stays silent, but something passes between them; grateful and earnest. Without knowing quite why, Theon nods. As if waiting for his permission, Jon leans forward and kisses him.

The kiss is deep and greedy, and Theon keens against his mouth. Jon’s hold on him tightens, as if Theon may fall to ash in his hands if he lets go. Theon is not so sure, suddenly, that he won’t. His own hands reach for Jon, grasping at his hair, and he pours himself out against the kiss, even as he tastes salt against his tongue.

Theon can feel the tension bleed from Jon’s shoulders, his body sag against Theon as if he’s all that holds him steady now. Theon allows it, holds Jon firm against his chest until the weight of his body sends them both falling heavily back onto bed of furs.

Theon holds him close, rocking him against his chest as a mother would a child. The weight that bears on Jon’s shoulders is abruptly tangible, pressing down on Theon’s lungs as he cradles him. He does not speak while Jon weeps, instead only shushing him gently, understanding, and waits for the tears to subside.

“I’m here, Jon,” he whispers finally, as he feels the shuddering tell of tears exhausted. “I’m here.”

He can make no further promise, but Jon does not seem to need one.

Afterwards, they lay together comfortably. Not speaking, just soaking in each other's presence. There is a fire in the hearth and candles burning on the windowsill, and the castle is warm, even in the snow. Jon lays on his back, arms folded behind his head, and Theon lays his head upon his chest, counting heartbeats, tracing one of the dark, deep scars over Jon's ribs. Always pensive, Jon has fallen quiet, and Theon would have thought he had dozed off if not for the way he was staring hard up at the joists in the ceiling. Once, Theon could soothe him so easily with sex and a sweet word, kiss that little pout out of his mouth, smooth the frown out of his brow. All coltish inexperience he was in those days. Now, he has never looked more troubled. The weight of a million lives rests heavy on Jon's head. And Theon knows him; Jon agonizes over every single one. He is too much like his brother. Too much like their father.

For all the good that ever did any of them.

“Jon,” Theon ventures, “who else knows?”

Pained, Jon shuts his eyes, exhales through his nose. “No one. Bran. And Sam.”

“Sam?”

“Samwell Tarly. A brother of mine from the Night's Watch.”

“And I suppose it goes unsaid that you trust him with your life?”

“I have before, and Sam has preserved me each time. The time I was fool enough to send him away, they killed me.”

Between them both, they have enough errors in judgment to furnish all seven hells. Theon does not know this Samwell Tarly, and he knows that Jon's judgment is easily clouded, but who is he to question Jon's trust? When his own has led him to only ruin.

“Will you tell anyone else?” murmurs Theon, brushing his thumb over an old stab wound.

“I don't know.” Jon removes an arm from behind his head, wraps it around Theon's back, tugs him close. “What good would it bring to anyone? All of us may be no more come the dawn. Or we might be marching south in the army of the dead. And then it won't matter to anyone if my father was Eddard Stark or Rhaegar Targaryen or a toothless old swineherd.”

Theon nuzzles against Jon's neck, trying to reel him back from the despair. “So then why tell me?”

“I had to tell someone.” Jon runs a hand over his face, through his unbound hair. “I am a coward, maybe, but I couldn't face dying with it alone. And you… I trust you, Theon.”

“And I was here. And willing.”

Jon cringes. “It's not like that.”

“No? I do not mind it,” assures Theon, propping himself up on an elbow, trying to catch Jon's eye. “There are worse ways to spend my last night.”

“Please, Theon, don't. Not now.”

He hushes. Theon lays his head back down, rising and falling with Jon's breath. Out the leaded window, the sky is the colour of ink, the air swirling with scattered flurries as an evening wind kicks up. Theon can hear the crowds working out in the yard, hammering dragonglass in the forge, herding smallfolk to and fro, churning the snow and the dirt beneath their feet. Stretching, Theon shifts his legs against Jon’s beneath the quilts, enjoying his warmth. He lets his eyes drift closed, lets the sounds muddle and feather to his ear. They will be needed soon, for something or other. To prepare, to rally, to battle. If the wildings are true with their reckoning, they have only hours. And they will be apart: Jon will be with the infantry beyond the castle walls and Theon will be in the godswood, guarding Bran until the last. 

He is glad beyond words that Bran allowed it, but sick with grief that he may die apart from the rest of them. It is the right choice to make, though. Theon would choose it again, choose it a hundred times.

The fire crackles in the hearth. Jon’s heart beats steady in his chest. Snow dances in the air outside. It may not be enough. But Theon treasures this moment, no matter what comes next.

Jon strokes his hair a while, and Theon has never loved anything more.

“I would have been kinder to you,” Jon says at length, his voice quite suddenly raw with tears again, “if I had known. If I had known what it was like... what it was like to lose your own name —”

“Jon —”

“I would have been better to you.”

“Shh, hush now,” Theon soothes, leans up to kiss him, fending off the despair in Jon’s heart, “it’s all done now. Over and done. Just lay here with me awhile more, before we’re called away.”

Theon can physically feel him restrain the urge to apologize, swallowing it down. Jon sighs, and smiles sadly, but doesn’t pursue the topic. If it is their last night, Theon doesn’t want to dwell on that. He has spent so much of his life on that already. There is so much more he wants to do. 

“Where will you spend your hours tonight?” he asks Jon, trying to steer him back from misery.

Quiet for a moment, as Jon considers, “With my brothers from the Night’s Watch, I think. After I’ve seen to everything else, seen to Sansa and Arya and Bran. They will be atop the battlements. Keeping watch.” It is almost a joke, and Jon almost laughs. “Perhaps I will visit the crypts a final time, before the smallfolk are moved down there. Where will you be?”

And honestly, Theon had not given it thought. But when Jon asks, he knows it sure as anything, where he wants to be.

“Sansa said she would be in the yard, making sure the people are fed before the fighting. I will stay with her, I think, before I must go.”

He cannot bring himself to look at Jon as he says it, but he can feel Jon turn his head, look down at him. It is wrong, perhaps, to admit it to Jon’s face, laying with him in his own bed. But it is what his heart yearns for. To be with Sansa. To be with Bran. To be with Jon. Each of them differently, perhaps, but just as fiercely, just as wholly as the others. He loves each of them, always has. All the Stark children. Perhaps Theon is still sick, after all. To say such things. To want them at all.

After a moment of scrutiny, Jon presses a kiss to his hair, “I think she would be happy for it, very much.”

Relief washes over Theon with such force it dizzies him, and he takes a gasping breath against a half-formed sob. Sansa had received him willingly. She held him delicately, and seemed only grateful for his presence. Perhaps Jon is right, though Theon has lost the confidence to feel he knows.

It is still dark, when Jon sits up in his bed. “We should go,” he says with an odd sense of calm. The tears seem rung from him now. All that is left now is the leader he has become in the face of chaos.

They dress one another in silence. There are no squires left to help anymore, and even if there were, Theon has dressed himself for years now. It’s peaceful, to help Jon with his leather doublet, his cloak. Jon lets him without a word, watching his hands fasten the clasps. When Theon is done, he stands with his hands at his sides, looking Jon over, before deciding to speak.

“You have all my love, Jon. No matter your name. I love all of you. With everything I have. Whatever happens, promise me you will remember that.”

“Theon…” Jon sounds embarrassed as he cuts Theon off. He is sick with fear and cannot die alone with his thoughts.

“You, your sisters, your brother. I am here for you all. Until… until the very end.” Shy, Jon nods. Words seem to fail him, and Theon takes a deep, shuddering breath to continue. “And for Rickon, and for Robb. For your father.” Before Jon can respond he corrects pointedly, “For _our_ father.”

He cringes, his fumbling, faltering attempt to make clear what he feels. Theon isn’t sure what he expects as he says it. Time drags silently between them, and Jon doesn’t move. It’s foolish, of course, to say such a thing. Theon was never thought to be among the Starks, and all he’s ever done is betray them. He does not deserve to call Eddard Stark his father, even if Theon has considered him such privately nearly all his life.

Abruptly, Jon clears the distance between them a final time and hugs Theon to his chest.

Shuddering against the gentle closeness, Theon hoists his arms around Jon’s back, letting Jon hold him as Sansa had done when she received him.

“Protect my brother, Theon,” Jon whispers into his hair, “but please — please protect yourself as well. I — I do not want this to be the last time I see you.”

Heart stuttering in his chest, Theon manages, “Jon —”

“Be safe, Theon. Please.”

It has been such effort, to be strong in the face of Jon’s tears. Stoic, serious Jon who has only allowed himself this once to drop his focus on the war. Jon has needed Theon’s resolution, and Theon has been happy to give him everything he needs. But at the begging for his safety, Theon feels his knees weaken in Jon’s hold.

Jon pulls him back to look at him in the face. Worried, perhaps, that Theon may start to cry.

“You have my love as well, Theon. And Sansa’s just the same, I know it. And — and our trust. Do not think that you must die in the godswood to earn that from us. Do you understand?”

Trembling, Theon nods. “I do.”

Hands shaking, Jon cups Theon’s face and holds his forehead still against his own.

“When this is over —”

Jon stops himself. He’s never been particularly optimistic, even as a boy with such useless troubles. But the words hang between them, and Theon feels warmth pool in his chest.

He nods. “You will be a great leader, Jon Snow. Whatever you choose.”

Eyes crinkling, Jon kisses his forehead. There is more to say, Theon can feel it thrumming under his skin as he grips Theon’s shoulders, but he does not try to speak. With a nod, Jon drops his hold on Theon and adjusts his own cloak.

“Shall we go?”

Theon nods, voiceless, and they walk from Jon’s chambers together.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Game of Thrones Day, I am not ready.
> 
> title from "No Choir" by Florence + The Machine


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